Lost in the uproar over his statement last night about “tremendous infectious disease … pouring across the border” was his admission that “I have lost a lot during this Presidential run defending the people of the United States.” That’s not true financially — the NBC, Macy’s, and Serta deals he had were nothing compared to his real estate holdings — but it may be true in terms of how willing the media is to give him his old megaphone back after the race is over. If corporate America decides that Trump’s too toxic to do business with after this and suddenly he finds his TV appearances outside of “Fox & Friends” limited, building skyscrapers probably isn’t going to satisfy him. Trump is more persona than person at this point. If running for president risks ruining the brand and there’s no realistic chance of winning the nomination to compensate for that, how long does he stick with it before dropping out?

Meanwhile, this is so stupid it’s frightening to think a person of influence could seriously be proposing it:

“Someone in the party ought to start some sort of petition saying, ‘If Trump’s going to be on the stage, I’m not going to be on there with him,’” Republican donor John Jordan told The Associated Press on Monday, according to a report published Tuesday. “I’m toying with the idea of it.”

“It’s something I feel strongly about as somebody who not only cares about the Republican Party, but also Latinos,” he added.

Forcing Trump off the stage is the surest way to build grassroots interest in his message and intensify grassroots hatred for the GOP establishment, to the point where I wonder if Jordan isn’t trying some sort of sly bank-shot tactic here. Republican centrists hate Trump despite his own highly centrist record because they’re afraid he’s going to alienate Latinos from the party’s eventual nominee. In the short-term, though, Trump’s presence in the race is wonderful for establishmentarians: He’s siphoning off votes from more formidable grassroots favorites like Ted Cruz, who’s almost alone among GOP candidates right now in praising Trump in order to position himself as their fallback choice once Trump leaves the race. The longer Trump hangs around, the harder it is for Cruz to get traction. And the surest way to make sure that he hangs around is to insult him by refusing to give him a mic at the GOP debates. Maybe that’s Jordan’s play — build Trump up as the “true” anti-establishmentarian and watch as the tea partiers desert Cruz and Paul while Bush consolidates the center. Or maybe Jordan really is so goofy that he thinks kicking Trump out of the debates won’t backfire horribly.

Via BuzzFeed, here’s amnesty fan Lindsey Graham calling on Republicans to denounce Trump, a tactic that’ll also backfire among parts of the base but will at least sustain the “maybe we’ll make major inroads with Latino voters in this election” charade a bit longer. Makes me wonder whether Graham, who’s on a seek-and-destroy mission against Rand Paul on foreign policy, might broaden his mission to try to take Trump out on immigration too. The only surer way to consolidate tea party support for Trump than barring him from the debates would be Grahamnesty picking a fight with him. But again, maybe there’s some establishmentarian method to that madness.